This project is currently being initiated to advance our understanding of the basic biology of the AIDS virus and its interaction with susceptible host cells. The previously reported IAV/Alex cell acute lytic cell system has provided valuable information on many of the parameters of virus/cell interaction such as the kinetics of virus production concomitant with cell killing. We have further studied the morphological evolution of the AIDS retrovirus in these cells using the electron microscope. We also used the electron microscope to show that a newly developed and cloned cell line which had been previously infected with LAV and shown to be Lu-III negative, yet produced LAV RNA and expressed LAV proteins did, in fact, produce large quantities of retrovirus particles. Although these particles would not replicate in susceptible cells and no reverse transcriptase can be detected; these "carrier" cells caused morphological changes in normal susceptible cells when cocultivated with them.